90 FAMILIAR TREES 



resembles the others ; and when grown from seed the 

 Lebanon Cedar varies considerably, its branches either 

 drooping or rising in a fastigiate manner. The main 

 distinctions between the three are, however, that the 

 Deodar has drooping branches and silvery foliage, the 

 Lebanon Cedar has its branches horizontal and its 

 mature foliage of a dark and somewhat bluish 

 green, whilst the Mount Atlas Cedar has ascending 

 branches and needles of a yellower shade of green. 

 The most striking characters of the Lebanon Cedar 

 are the numerous large and wide-spreading horizontal 

 branches and the broad and flattened summit of the 

 full-grown tree. When young, one or two leading 

 branches rise above the rest ; but the mature form is 

 known to nurserymen as " clump - headed." These 

 points, together with the fact that the Cedar grows 

 best in a deep soil, where its roots have access to water, 

 are most graphically presented to us in the grand 

 passage in the Book of Ezekiel, the most striking of 

 the many Biblical allusions to this tree : — ^ 



" Behold the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, 

 and with a, shadowing shroud, and of an high stature ; and his top 

 was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep 

 set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, 

 and sent out her little rivers nnto all the trees of the field. Therefore 

 his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his 

 boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of 

 the multitude of waters, . , . Thus was he fair in his greatness, in 

 the length of his branches ; for his root was by great waters . . . nor 

 any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty." 



The rich brown bark of the gradually tapering 

 stem becomes deeply scored with age, and contrasts 

 well with the level layers of dark fohage. Though 



